Am I doing everything right for my red eared slider babies?

Question

I have a ten gallon tank.3 red eared slide babies 2 lily pads oh and about the lily pads when I put them in the water little worms came out what are those?!I feed them goldfish I will soon be getting pellet food for them.I have 2 25 wat bulbs.I have a slope of rocks that they can get on whenever they want.and I use a toothbrush to scrub there shels every week or so.

Answer 1

The worms may be just that - or the aquatic larvae of some flies.

You should also have a UV light for your turtles. And the water temperature should be in the high 70s to 80o.

You can get all the info you need to care for your turtles at these links:
http://www.austinsturtlepage.com/Care/caresheet-red_ear_slider.htm
http://www.redearslider.com/

Answer 2

Little worms came out of what? The turtles? I hope you know that you need filtration (and lots of it) for your tank otherwise the water will become stagnant can stink up an entire room. I wouldn't feed them goldfish for very long. The feeder goldfish you buy in pet stores are treated with all kinds of chemicals that can become toxic over time to your turtle. So yeah, don't do that. You can feed them regular turtle food. If you must feed your turtles live fish I would suggest that you start raising guppies. It's much, much safer.

Oh, and I hope you realize that your turtles will grow to be almost a foot long, so you'll need a bigger tank before long. I would suggest a 55 gallon tank with LOTS of filtration. Oh and they also live almost 20 or 30 years so I hope you planned on keeping them that long because you cannot release them into the wild after you hand raised them because they will not know how to hunt for food or take care of themselves.

The good news is once your baby turtles get big enough you can retire the old ten gallon tank and use it to raise guppies to feed them. Good luck.